A Higher Slot Limit For Stripers Is Needed

The last of the striped bass are passing our shores this week. There are still fish to be had — including keepers, if you are looking for a couple of last striper dinners — but they are definitely on the move.

Fishing in the New York Bight and off the Jersey coast is still in full swing if you are inclined to travel in pursuit. Locally, there’s still great black sea bass, blackfish and cod fishing to be had aboard local party boats. Fill the freezer for the winter if you have the time.

So we are left looking to next year. There are plenty of reasons for hope but also plenty of reasons to be calling for change.

As discussed in my last two columns, striped bass are not in a good place: Striper spawning has been awful for most of the last decade, the environmental conditions that lead to successful spawns are growing rarer, and we anglers kill far too many striped bass, especially among those that go to waste as “dead discards.” The situation is not quite dire, like it was in the 1980s, but it’s fraught enough to be worth pressing for drastic changes to how we approach the targeting of striped bass by fishermen.

I’ve talked about how anglers might be able to reduce dead discards — fewer treble hooks, or removing rear hooks on lures entirely. Now it’s time to look at how we can better serve the fishery.

I’m a believer in the slot limit. I think the striper fishing in the New York Bight for the last month is the proof of why it was the better choice over the 36-inch minimum size approach. Thousands of large fish are being caught and released every day, many of which would be killed if not for the prohibition on keeping fish over 35 inches. Sure, some of them are probably dying anyway — because of the rear treble of a wooden plug, or because they are not revived carefully (though this is less of an issue in cold autumn waters than it is in the heat and low oxygen of summer) — but many, many more are going back healthy and strong to fight, and spawn, again.

But I also think that regulators missed the mark slightly with the slot range and should adjust it at the first chance they get, which is probably not until 2023, unfortunately.

Striped bass start spawning at about 8 years old. Most fish that age are in the 26-to-28-inch range, weighing about 10 pounds or so when their belly is full. The statistic that was used back in the 1990s when regulators dropped the minimum size limit to 28 inches was that a limit at that point meant that at least half of the fish that would be killed would have spawned at least once. In the statistical models, that would allow the fish to sustain their numbers while allowing fishermen to reap the benefits of Mother Nature’s bounty.

They might have been generally right, except that greed and political influence and human nature conspired to bastardize the scientific analysis, ignoring evidence that year after year of failed spawns, while harvest levels remained the same or even expanded, were depleting the striper stock quickly.

There are huge numbers of small stripers around from the respectable 2014 and large 2015 year classes. Those fish are just starting to grow into keeper size and will start being killed in large numbers as they do — many of them before they have had a chance to spawn and at least replace themselves in the future roster.

Leaving that same baseline in the current slot limit was a misfire, I think. No, having more fish spawn once or twice before they can be harvested is not going to make a huge difference in the grand scheme of spawning success, but it certainly won’t hurt. Some of them will die as dead discards anyway if we don’t come up with better rules to address that, and poor climatological conditions still will keep the lid on spawning success almost regardless of the breeding stock.

But a 28-inch fish is a tiny striped bass, comparatively. The fillets from a just-“keeper” are barely enough for dinner for two adults, whereas the fillets from a 34-inch fish are two meals for those same two adults.

And as someone who wishes we’d all use more of the fish we kill, I enjoy getting a third meal out of a striped bass by cooking the head and collar and pulling the delicious white meat out from between the hard bones that is just left for the seagulls or crabs by far too many fishermen. (Tens of thousands of meals of delicious white striped bass meat is thrown into the garbage at marinas all over the East Coast every week.)

The collar of a fish less than 32 inches is of minimal value as table fare. It will not provide an entire additional meal unless you’re making fish head soup. The head of a 34-inch fish is enough for a meal for two adults, and a 36-inch or 38-inch fish will dump enough hunks of white meat into a bowl to make fish tacos for four people. (I’m sure you can tell I'm speaking from specific experience.)

So in my view, shifting the slot limit upward makes the most sense from both a conservation standpoint and a utilitarian standpoint that allows a conscientious fish harvester to make the most of the fewer striped bass he will be allowed to kill in the coming years — or a charter boat customer paying top dollar and looking for maximum return.

A slot limit with a minimum size of 32, 33, or 34 inches and a maximum of 38 or 39 inches would be easier on the fish and more generous in the frying pan, in my view.

All of this is to say nothing of the abhorrent size limits that are allowed in the Chesapeake Bay system, where fish as small as 18 inches can be kept. That is a total waste of valuable fish. Yes, the anglers who play host to the bulk of the striped bass stock and its nursery feel entitled to be able to keep some fish, but such galling waste is hard to stomach and can’t possibly be the only option allowing Marylanders to eat well while protecting the striper stock.

Enough about next year. It’s last licks for this year. Get out there.

Catch ’em up. See you out there.